THE immediate takeaway from the latest LucidTalk poll is that the DUP has quite the problem.

It is seven points behind Sinn Féin, one point behind the UUP, two points ahead of the SDLP, and three ahead of the TUV.

Most worryingly of all, of course, is that it now represents just over a third of the total unionist vote.

Yet it seems like only five minutes ago that the DUP was master of all it surveyed at the Assembly, Westminster and local government.

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A time when it accounted for over two-thirds of the unionist vote and held, or so it thought, Theresa May’s government in the palm of its hand.

But those days have gone. Reduced to five MPs, no longer with immediate dibs on the First Minister role, and knee-deep in a mess about how much it knew or didn’t know about the thoroughgoing hypocrisy exhibited in the lifestyle enjoyed by Jeffrey Donaldson in London, contrasted with that of his Heepish behaviour in Northern Ireland.

The DUP has had difficulties before, of course. A LucidTalk poll in August 2021 – around the time when the party was replicating the internal meltdowns usually associated with the UUP, by dumping Arlene Foster and........

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